to . From Deek Creek trailhead, I hiked to Roosevelt Lakes and back, taking a 3-hour detour to summit Rosalie Peak.
Mine was the only car at the trailhead. It was late when I arrived and already starting to get dark.Hiked in about 1 mile and set up camp in the dark. This is camp the next morning.Bizarre mutant fungoid.Mushrooms were the theme of the trip.Mini mush.Purple asters.Mushy melty mushroom.Cute open meadow along the trail.Blue flower with petals still folded.Blue bell flower.Crush mush.Cool old rusted metal.Probably horse droppings.Sun-dappled stream crossing.Creeping bearded shoggoth fungus.Fungus colony.Mush eruption.Tracks of elk, perhaps? I heard them bugling a lot below treeline.Woodpecker.Mush mash.Mushroom gills.Glimpse of the path ahead above treeline.Horseshoe tracks.Nice open high country.Blue flowers.Elk tracks, I think.Looking back down the river valley.Could be yarrow, Achillea millefolium.View of the south face of Rosalie Peak.One of the Pegmatite Points.This saddle is on the boundary of Pike and Arapaho National Forests.Quite tundra-y terrain, not as rocky as I would have guessed.Looking north toward Rosalie Peak from the saddle, from here you cannot see the true summit.High country hiking.Here lies Triangle Man.Approach to Roosevelt Lakes.Elk droppings, I guess.Cream-colored flowers like the blue ones at lower altitudes.Ultra-clear water in the lakes.Well, it looks more clear when you're wearing polarized lenses.It was my first time hiking in these boots and they chewed up my heels a bit.Fancy lunch.Mountains're nice.Took a swim in the lake! A short one, it was cold.Pulled this cool old can out of the lake.Letting the hair dry.More fungoids even above treeline.Tearing through the dry grass.Light rain started to roll in in the early afternoon.Photo to remember where I left my stash as I departed from the trail to climb Rosalie Peak.This ptarmigan and I were surprised to see one another.Neat lotus-like plant in the sand up high.I usually expect to see just rocks at this altitude, but there was tons of moss, grass, and scrubby flowers.Heck of a false summit on this one. The actual peak is tucked back behind a couple of terraces.Looking northwest to Mount Blue Sky, you can see the zigzag road on it.Cairn marking the summit.Rosalie Peak, 13,575 ft.A dead stoat or something.Roosevelt Lakes from above.Pretty tall plants for up this high.Thistley plants with a central stalk.Patch of yarrow, back on the trail again.Gnarly old dead wood.Toasted mushmallow.Mega mush.Just out of frame at the bottom there was a moose moving through a clearing at a trot. I hip-fired the camera but missed it.Second night's camp, close to where Tanglewood Trail meets Tanglewood Creek.The vial of indicator test dye with my water filter ruptured and stained my fingers blue.Sunny morning.Packed up.Site of a moose showdown, perhaps.Angular mushroom.Putrid rotten mushroom.What the heck kind of fungus is this? It was soft and pliable. Flavor, 2 out of 5.Flat leafy fungus.Lovely white and yellow daisies.Aspen leaves starting to turn.Sign that I passed in the dark the first night.Fresh horse tracks.Butterfly posing.Beautiful aspens.Purple versions of those while flowers.Some kind of wispy cotton plant.Witch's brooms in a dead evergreen.Cute bridge right at the start of the trail."In Wildness is the preservation of the World."That explains the horse tracks.Made it out.Wanted to check my tire air pressure and found this ancient artifact. No dial tone, I checked.
